On October 1st and 2nd, Centre for Arts-based Methodologies & Wellbeing (CFAW) had the privilege to be a part of a room full of change-makers at the International Conference on Child and Adolescent Mental Health 2024, a consortium of passionate leaders who are dedicated in the field of adolescent mental health with all their heart. Team CFAW made the journey from Karachi to Kathmandu, Nepal in the name of sharing knowledge, creating safe spaces, and sharing pure joy.

The opening day of ICCAMH highlighted breakdown of government funds for child and adolescent mental health in South Asia. While, it is also low in the other countries, but for Pakistan, hearing that only 0.4% of total funds are allocated towards mental health left us feeling broken. We all came together to share knowledge between the sessions and discuss the intriguing case studies and posters we had bought with us.

Amongst many impactful research posters, our project Dareecha, stood out. Dareecha, a collaborative project of PHC Global and CFAW. Banafsha Ali, Rutaba Syed and Dr. Maria Iqbal shared the zero suicide intervention for adolescents in Ghizer District, Gilgit Baltistan. The arts-based approach of Dareecha made it the impactful intervention that moved many hearts and won our team the Outstanding Poster award.

The closing and the second day was a highlight for us as our team, lead by CFAW Curator Rutaba Syed, held space for the conference participants’ inner child through a workshop. This also reminded us how being a child felt like - we began reminiscing what joy, love, shame, fear and passion felt like through expressive art practices. We design interventions for the children of today and tomorrow by remembering our own experiences of adolescence in these emotions. Dareecha was also awarded ‘Most Innovative’ by the organizers and audience. We hold so much gratitude for the presence and impact we had the opportunity to develop during this conference.

There is truly beauty in the art of holding space, it is a reciprocal relationship between the facilitator and the audience where each responds differently but combines the innateness of being human.